Hot! That’s what fall is like in Florida. While everyone else gets cool evenings and crunchy fall leaves with gorgeous color, we’re still sweating and pretending it’s summer. I remember the good old days when October meant snow in Minnesota where I grew up. My kids don’t know any better so I made some Florida fall bento lunches.

Packed in her sistema brand lunchbox, my 4 year old has kiwi slices with a clementine peel squirrel on top, mini acorn sandwiches, black seedless grapes and orange cantaloupe leaves.

For her snacks today, Miss G has grape tomatoes with mini carrots and in a smaller container she has trail mix with cashews, walnuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds, and dried fruit.

I like to change things up between kids so my 2 year old is having the same trail mix with a squirrel cutout for decoration. She also has acorn and pumpkin sandwiches, honeydew leaves and cantaloupe acorns packed in her LunchBots Quad stainless container.

And for the other snack I packed a fall themed squirrel bento with strawberries, plums (underneath) and a peeled clementine orange in the middle.

Miss A had to skip camp today due to a runny nose so I sent Miss G to school with her small square bento. From the top left she has organic nectarine sections, star shaped sandwiches on Rudi’s Whole Grain bread with almond butter & jam and organic red seedless grapes with a star baran (food separator/decoration) on top.

My husband had another baby green salad with baby bok choi and spinach. I found a black radish at our local Whole Foods which I’d never seen before. It’s larger than the traditional red radishes and a charcoal colored black on the outside, but it tastes very similar to the red radishes and is completely white in the middle. The black radish slices are in the middle, next are small slices of a baby zucchini, and I also julienned a larger carrot I had left in the fridge for the outer edge of the salad. Not shown is his favorite ginger dressing. At the top left are mixed nuts and goji berries and in the flower at the top right are strawberry pieces packed in his Easy Lunch Box container.

I had a long, frustrating day yesterday with the girls so I decided to pour it into making some extra special bentos for today’s lunches. They both love Olivia the pig on Nick Jr. Their friend, Ada Sofia, loves her more than them both combined so this is for her too. And it’s a continuation of the letter “O” week at school where they both learn about everything having to do with the letter and practice writing their “O”s.

Miss G gets the more elaborate princess Olivia in her red gown. The “bread” is flatbread with veggie “meat” and “cheese” slices and the details are in fruit leather in her stainless LunchBots bento container.

The separate container has freshly picked sugar snap peas and strawberries from a local farm with a prune for good measure (iron & fiber and vitamin A). She also has a little pic container full of unsalted mixed nuts (cashews, pistachios and a big walnut).

Miss A gets the big Olivia face made from the same.

Her heart container has fresh strawberries, a little pig container with lid of raisins inside, a pink container of the same type of mixed nuts and dried apricot chunks. Both girls have ice waters with their lunches.